


Because of a Hand

by sunriseseance



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Confessional, F/F, Feelings, Fluff, I Don't Even Know, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:22:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22081015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunriseseance/pseuds/sunriseseance
Summary: He's changed. She nods and let's Fjord lead her out of the inn, up a slight hill, and into a garden. It's beautiful. Pink flowers bloom on trees with a bark that's gray, almost, and papery. Green moss. There's a river running through the center. She can't bring herself to do anything but look at him with worry. She's good at that."I am… not used to this life" Fjord says, after finding them a quiet place to sit.---Fjord confesses some long-brewing feelings, Beau contemplates. Carrier Bag theory of fiction up in here. Based on a dream.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord, Fjord & Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 12
Kudos: 133





	Because of a Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a very real, largely mundane Fjorclay dream I had. I keep forgetting it isn't Canon. Here's this. I'm on mobile so tagging is hard. All ships are only mentioned.

Beau hears a hesitant knock on her door. Caleb, she thinks. Caleb feeling like shit. She crosses the room quietly, knowing Caleb's usual response to 'it's open!' Except it's not Caleb. 

It's Fjord. 

His nails, black, scratch at his hair and she's struck, briefly, by how he's older than her. How his joints must hurt when they work out. She knows people in their thirties. Why does he look so timid? 

"Can I have a moment of your time, Beau?" he asks. He doesn't meet her eyes, which is unusual for him. 

She pauses at this. He's serious. He only acts like this when he's serious. First mate time. She's got work to do. 

"Sure, bro. Whatever you need. You wanna come in?" 

He smiles, for a second, at the ground. Rubs his toe on the concrete. Finally, he looks at her. 

"I'd prefer to be outside, I think, if that's okay." 

Which, yes, of course it's okay. She's not doing anything else with her time. He looks nervous. Her heart stuppors. This is bad. She can tell this is bad. 

He's changed. She nods and let's Fjord lead her out of the inn, up a slight hill, and into a garden. It's beautiful. Pink flowers bloom on trees with a bark that's gray, almost, and papery. Green moss. There's a river running through the center. She can't bring herself to do anything but look at him with worry. She's good at that. 

"I am… not used to this life" Fjord says, after finding them a quiet place to sit. 

"Our life?" she asks "none of us are, I don't think. Dude, this shit is all crazy. We're all in over our heads. It's totally cool that you're… Out of your depths." 

He laughs, traces his nail in the dirt. An absent swirling pattern that ticks some memory in Beau. She watches his breath move his body in a way she's not used to. He's nervous, vulnerable, and showing it. Really showing it. No mask. 

"I meant my new life. I am used to using my words, to lying, to fighting to live. The consistency of Melora… The consistency of you all is unusual. I don't know how to be that person." 

He searches her face for something. She hopes he finds it. 

"I can't… Relate. Ioun is cool but she's not, you know… You should talk to Caduceus." 

Fjord's body shifts. She watches it. He smiles a bit. Huh. 

"He's always had this. Melora. A family."

"Well. Okay. I think it's… Okay to feel out of your depths on this. You escaped a cult, dude. You gained new powers. You met… Us. For better or for worse." 

He grabs her arm, and meets her eyes. His eyes have a determination she finds comfort in. 

"For better. That much I am sure of. I am just in new territory, and I am not sure how someone like me navigates it.". 

More spirals on the ground. She's got a theory. 

"You had shipmates, Fjord. You've had connections." 

"Not like this" he says, and it's so emphatic it brings a smile to Beau's face. "Not like this. Not at all like this."

"This isn't about us, or Melora. Fjord, can you tell me why you really wanted to talk to me?" 

She watches him shut his eyes. She watches his shoulders slump as he lets out a breath, and rise as he sucks in a fresh one. She watches the corners of his mouth flick up. She notices the length of his tusks. He greets the breeze with his skin. His hand finds its way to his hair again. It runs through it in a spiral. 

"I love Caduceus." he says. It's quiet. Like he's afraid the blossom-breeze will pick up his words and carry them to the man in question. 

She's an asshole. 

"I mean, who doesn't? He's kind. He's smart. He cares a lot. He keeps us idiots grounded and he does it without complaining. What isn't to love?" 

She wants to hear him say it. 

"Not like that. I love him, Beau."

"I… understand." she keeps it vague, but puts a hand on his shoulder. 

"I didn't know I was capable of such a thing. I haven't ever… Not like this."

She hears the shake in his voice, because he doesn't try to hide it. The sun, bright as ever, catches the green of his skin. 

"Not like this," she repeats, and she means it, "I understand. It's a scary thing, isn't it." A statement, not a question. Ioun might smite her. 

"Terrifying. He's…" Fjord trails off. Beau knows why. 

When Nott asked her to explain why she loved Jester (not in those words) Beau struggled with what to say. Jester lives, in all of her glory, at the limits of language. She captured Beau's heart and her eyes and her mind and Beau would do anything for her, but she cannot put anything on paper. The language isn't enough. Jester will always be more than the words Beau can find for her, and Beau is smarter than Fjord. 

"Worth being terrified for?" Beau offers. When she realized, really realized, how she felt about Jester it almost stopped her heart in her chest. She wanted to want to run, but there wasn't an ounce of that in her. She'd feel that out of her depths for the rest of her life if it meant being close to Jester. She watches Fjord smile. 

"Unquestionably. I would do this a thousand times over." 

"Well, Caduceus is one lucky cleric." 

"I didn't convert for this. I want you to know that. I… Came to love him after." 

Beau doesn't doubt that. Fjord acted with conviction and fear and desperation. Not how he acts now. 

"Why?" she asks. She watches Fjord bite his lip, smile, close his eyes. 

"I think he's good. On a level that's so deep I would love to know it. Stop laughing. I owe him my salvation and he wants nothing in return. He… understands me. He knows me, Beau, and he chooses me anyway." 

Beau bites at her own lips, and offers Fjord a nod. Hard to fault his reasoning. 

" You know you're worth choosing, right? "

The wind blows a petal into Fjord's hair. It spiraled on the wind before it landed. 


End file.
